Last Ride of the Day
by YokaiShinari
Summary: Daryl is a woman. That woman is me. Merle has a sister, because it was my dream. Structure is distorted, because it was really what I saw in my sleep. This is the story how during the apocalypse siblings are reunited and eventually separated again forever.


_A/N: This might feel like many things. It's more a piece of art that a typical fanfiction, I guess. I'm happy to share._ _  
_ _Characters implied are highly OOC. I transcripted my dream sequence after sequence, so apart from wordiness, everything here really happened in my head. The dream followed kinda the Dixon brothers' fight in the woods, too._ _That was interesting to experience. Please enjoy!_

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 **Warnings for: implied rape, gore.**

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 _And you fucking left my brother there!?_

I'm overly pissed. Everyone is around and not my brother. I know I have to do something about it. They look at me. I'm taking action. Alone. They won't try to stop me. I hate them. I don't belong here. Me and my brother were already outcasts, and so we belong together.

I get a car. Ugly, rusty pile of crap. But it works. I drive away. I don't need those people. I need to find Merle.

/

Sky looks burned. Like ashy purple stain from melted plastic. I drive under it with my heart on my shoulder.

/

Streets in the area are dirty. Buildings are small. How did I get here? I drive, and I know that there are walkers. And there are - on the right. A scattered horde of snarling, stinking death. It doesn't reach me. I drive away to the left not caring about them a bit.

/

Trees grow on one side of the street. How green they are at this time of the year? Did the car stopped? I pulled to a stop on the side. I have a weapon. And I hold it. Bolt-shooting piece of metal that had been keeping me alive even Before. I don't know what could happen. The death is everywhere now even more.

/

A truck came by and stopped near my spot. I saw two women inside, so I go out to greet them. Girls know how to stay together. And I need help. Don't want, but need as hell.

/

I pat with my hand one side of the door, then walk around the front of the car, while the women inside follow me with their eyes. As if knowing me from somewhere. I don't know them for sure.

As I walked to the bed of the truck, I am greeted by a familiar face.

Face of my brother.

Old and ugly, but with a smile that I know well. It was a smug smile. But warm. And familiar. It felt good to see him. Somehow.

Next to him sits a brown haired beauty. Another woman. Are all of them his? Hell, I wouldn't be surprised. But with the fuckery of the world that happened to occur, Merle found himself in something he loved - adrenaline, free stuff everywhere, and women that clung to his side for protection.

And his little sister, which is me.

 _'S good to see you, Darelle. Hop on!_

 _/_

We drive somewhere. Along a road that is empty and nothing is around either. Grotesque nothingness, with signs of nature growing here and there.

One time there are enormous trees, closing above us, enveloping us with malicious shadow. Dark death figures are walking somewhere between the trees. There, on the sides, where we could barely see them. But they are there. Always lurking.

We don't talk. It's a quiet understanding of the situation. Stay low. Tarry around. Be like your enemy.

Another time we see buildings from afar, behind smaller bushes as we ride.

That time it's not that quiet.

An explosion alters the ever-scrimy sky. The smoke highers up in dark clouds. Something appears and flies up. The debris. The fire. It all gets bigger and bigger. And one unknown object hits the truck. We bolt, but we ride further. Faster.

Ducking our heads, avoiding flying remnants of something that ended in the fire.

 _Fucking drive!_

Not sure who screams, we all feel the same fear.

Flames reach the road, burning the entire wayside. It's hot. It's scary.

Don't know when I reached for my brother's hand. Big and strong. And he squeezed mine just as tightly. Holding for dear life. Helping me be there. Sometimes he would do this.

/

As night came, we crashed at some house. It is dark outside. The room is big enough for four of us.

The one woman didn't survive the fire rage from earlier. She ended her ride there.

/

Merle lays down first. He looks worn out pretty good. I still don't know how he escaped the roof. How he managed to help those women, or however to call their mutual adventure. We haven't talked about it. And we never will. Times are even grimier than before. We don't talk. We see.

The dark haired woman laid down next to him. Layla? Lianne? That doesn't matter. That's a new that he lets a woman curl with him, not expecting her to jump on his dick straight on.

This all feels strange. But we're here in the strange world.

/

I walk silently through the house. I check the doors. Cover up the windows with curtains. There's a post-sunset line on the horizon on the west side. It's red and dangerous. I go further.

/

Darkness meets a line of light under one of the inside doors. The bathroom I'm in still has running water. In the next room a ghost of a woman playing with a kitten lays on the floor. There's nothing I can do about it.

/

I'm a girl; I rummage for some fitting clothes. It's strange, changing into foreign fabrics. I've never had more than a few. Old rags were usually the things I had. Or could afford.

I wouldn't have sunk low enough to be a baby of a sugar daddy. That was below Dixon's pride, even though it was bad enough already. Illusion. I know that.

/

One door has a little nail that works as a lock. It prevents from opening them from the outside. They lead to another room. Keyhole is dark. I think there was a silhouette there.

/

I stealth back to our bunking room. I know I can't fell asleep. Someone has to take care of things. I seem as the most fitting person.

/

There is suddenly a walker outside the window. Its snarling jolts everyone alarmed. Everyone stills and waits. Ready. I know my weapon. I'm always ready with it.

The distressing sounds disappear as quickly as they came.

/

We're on the road again. Dark haired beauty drives, while the other woman next to her grieves the loss of the previous one. They were related. You know the feeling after losing your kin.

For some reason I know too.

He sits next to me and I want to talk. But he's in his head again. With his chin tilted up, like he knows every last secret of the universe.

He doesn't know shit, though. And as we sit, as I remember our past, I grow angrier.

/

We fight. With words. Words he'd always been better with.

I ask why he didn't come back for me.

 _You were never there!_

Holding one of my red arrows with my fist, I wanted to do something to him. Stab him. Scar him. Leave a mark on him, like the ones I had from his absence in my life.

Which I show him.

/

And the sky is filthy with undefined colors of death once more.

/

And Merle genuinely grows concerned. Sympathetic. I feel like he's almost sorry.

 _He did that to you?_

But we fight. I want to fight with him. With all my despising and disappointment in him, I need him to know.

 _He did THAT to us both! But you weren't there later! You weren't there when he..!_

And I stopped. I know he knows then. My eyes scream at him the images of old father covering his daughter's body. Stench of drunken breath lingers on her skin. Flesh to flesh with one-sided pleasure. Salty kaleidoscope of hatred spill from my eyes, which I escape from my brother with. I am with myself. He doesn't know.

But he understands. And I want him to. We don't talk.

/

Rest of the ride around, he holds my hand again. And it's strange too. But I let him. And we cross the barrier of toxic siblinging. I lean on him. And he's there for me. With silent regret that won't change nothing. With an apology, worth a dog shit. But somewhere in our own ways, he shows me his feelings. And I forgive him. We're here, because we have to.

You don't know how pitiful and humiliating is seeking comfort in a sibling, when you run out of anger that covers all of your hurt. When you can't rely on yourself anymore.

It isn't bonding. That doesn't mean shit. We're here, because we have to.

There's always been me and my brother before this.

/

Another night, another house. Looks strangely familiar.

/

Little bent nails working as locks again. And it all feels eery. With gray-green walls and silver streams of moonlight. It beams through the curtains. But never laying on anything. It dissolves in the darkness.

/

A man greets us. But he isn't a man anymore. His eyes become faded and he lounges at us faster than I could react. He snarls. Bites. And I end him.

But he started the end of her: the dark haired woman Merle grown close to, somehow. My brother curses in pain from inside.

/

She lies on the bed. Darkness in her eyes. The bite spills poison all over her face. We see how it goes deeper. How her nails bend and wither. How veins on her skin fill with purple-black death. And now her crow-dark hair are white and she needs to kill.

The woman screams. I want to silence her. Fucking, make her stop. It hurts more than a wound.

But I can only watch.

/

We need to draw a knife. We need to react.

 _Merle!_

The other woman's shrieking _Get the knife_ stays in my head as I see him.

He's in pain. He holds the woman and he leans to kiss her. To kiss the death. And he does it.

And she bites him. Gets his lips. Gets his flesh out of his mouth. Out of his face. World around spins and I can only see the ashy harshness of the dead woman's hands.

I scream in my head.

Just then I can move and barely pile her head on the knife I hold.

/

His eyes are dead and he wants me to join him in the agony. His wretched skin mockingly dangling from his face as he approaches me. Without that cocky smile, that used to comfort me every time.

The image becomes a blur before my tear stained eyes.

I remember stabbing him so hard. With all the pain. With all the injustice in this world. With all the hatred for him for leaving me once again. For myself. For him. For our past. And possible future together. We had to be.

/

He could have been better. I saw it. He showed me he could have. We don't talk, you know.

/

Forgetting about the woman. About everything else, I knew, I had to find other people. Maybe they were somewhere around.

I still hated them. But I needed people.

/

I drive under the filthy looking, violet-gray sky. Death rots around me. My heart? I left it somewhere behind.

/

I found the group somewhere on the crossing. Strange pools underground force them to quarrel between themselves. Someone is talking with someone else. A man sits on a tree, looking down. They all look under their boots, trying to find something living where they cannot see.

Later, I'm finding out, they are looking for a little girl.

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 _Thank you for reading!_


End file.
